My students know that I have been talking about the eventual impact of augmented reality for years now. I’ve been developing a new course with Columbia Business School about it, and in parallel, I’ve been creating an outline of a book on the topic.
Below is a brief synopsis of what Augment Nation is all about; think of it like what would appear on the back cover.
The eventual mass adoption of augmented reality (AR) will have far-reaching implications that will impact multiple industries and all of human life.
While you might not realize it, this transition is already well under way. Think of all the things in your life that at one time were part of the physical world but are now software. This transformation has been happening for decades, piece by piece, and the mass adoption of smartphones accelerated it dramatically by giving billions of people around the world instant access to the Internet whenever they want.
AR will move that access from being an active activity (choosing to take your phone out, unlocking it, and then using it) to a passive activity (present all the time).
When I was working at Apple in 2006, the year before the iPhone was announced, no one (including me) knew that the world was about to experience a major paradigm shift. Even after its release, the ultimate impact that iPhone and other smartphones were going to have was not immediately obvious. That was almost 15 years ago. We are due for another such shift.
Rather than attempting to predict when and how AR will break out, or to debate whether it will or not (although you can imagine which side of that debate I’d fall on!), Augment Nation will aim to describe the world as it will be after mass adoption has already happened. It will read like fiction, painting a vivid picture of a future where advanced AR is as ubiquitous as smartphones are today.
Welcome to Augment Nation.
Paul Canetti
Paul Canetti
Paul Canetti
Paul Canetti
